Magdalena Schools teacher Deb Ingersoll was named Educator of the Year at the New Mexico Organic Farming Conference in Albuquerque. She won the award for the greenhouse class she teaches and her efforts in getting fresh vegetables and greens to the school cafeteria.

Ingersoll, on accepting the award, said, “I had no idea you could get an award for playing in the dirt with kids.”

Ingersoll joined the school faculty just one year ago and only started the greenhouse class at the beginning of the fall semester.

Magdalena’s middle/high school principal Leslie Clark accompanied Ingersoll to the conference.

“Magdalena Schools is privileged to have on our staff a certified organic farmer,” Clark said. “This organic farmer is not only working with the students in the green house but she is also getting the food she grows into our school cafeteria.”

Ingersoll’s Saturday morning workshop was called “Thinking Outside the Sandbox: Alternative Ways to Getting Local Produce Into Schools.”

“It was very well received and a lot of people hung around afterwards asking questions,” Ingersoll said. “Mostly because people are interested in trying to solve problems with common barriers to getting local produce into schools.”

The two-day event featured workshop sessions on topics including creating an organic system plan, integrated pest management, managing weeds, using pesticide labeled “organic,” sustaining pollinators, selecting and saving seeds, and preparing for new federal food safety rules.

“Deb has visions of our school creating a product that the students can market and sell, so is it no wonder that she received Organic Farmers Educator of the Year?” Clark said. “Besides being the only certified organic greenhouse operator at a school in the state, Deb Ingersoll is a phenomenal teacher whose goal to bring fresh and wholesome food into our schools.”

Four of the greenhouse class’s six students attended the conference with Ingersoll and Clark.

Greenhouse student Izzy Mansell said the conference had a great impact on him, “because it showed me that there is a lot of great farming going on in New Mexico, and that may be an area I could go into later in my life.”

Sophomore Anna Briggs, another Magdalena student attending the conference, said “it was great to have all these people come up to me and shake my hand, telling me how inspiring me and my classmates are. None of this would have been possible if it weren’t for my teacher.”